Efforts to calculate the amount of foundation giving to underserved communities have frequently underestimated the level of giving due to a lack of detailed reporting, according to a new study released by the Philanthropic Collaborative.
Economist Phillip Swagel, in his report Broad Benefits: Health-Related Giving by Private and Community Foundations, found that previous estimates have greatly underestimated foundation giving to underserved groups because of inadequate coding in databases of grants.
Swagel estimated that as much as 68 percent of foundation grants target underserved groups such as minorities and the poor, double the percentage of some previous estimates based on a database compiled by the Foundation Center.
As Swagel explained, a lack of explicit coding for underserved populations in the database “does not mean that a grant provides no benefits to the underserved.”
His research examined a large sample of health related grants not coded as benefiting underserved groups to assess the extent to which they do in fact provide benefits to these groups. The result of his grant-by-grant analysis found that 53.4 percent of the dollar value of the un-coded grants supported minorities and the economically disadvantaged.
“I am gratified our assumptions about the commitment of health foundations to improving conditions for underserved and minority populations stand up to the scrutiny of empirical research,” said Lauren LeRoy of Grantmakers In Health. “With growing foundation efforts to address the root causes of poor health as well as access to care, the proportion of grant dollars focused on these groups is likely to rise.”
Based on the new research, the Philanthropic Center said the health sector is the greatest recipient of foundation monies, receiving roughly 18 percent of total grants, including $5.5 billion in health grants to underserved communities from 2005 to 2007.
